"Rather than developing our own capabilities, we will be depending on DOD support for functions such as a quick reaction force, personnel recovery, fuel support, explosive ordinance disposal, and medical assistance, by 2015," Kennedy said.

when President Barack Obama said the combat mission in Afghanistan will end and the U.S. will complete the transition of the entire country to Afghan government control.

"We are leaving in 2014, period, and in the process, we're going to be saving over the next 10 years another $800 billion," Biden said. "We've been in this war for over a decade. The primary objective is almost completed. Now all we're doing is putting the Kabul government in a position to be able to maintain their own security. It's their responsibility, not America's."

None of these statements contradict subby...

// Are you now arguing AGAINST keeping heavily armed soldiers/Marines/etc around to protect the State Dept (aka the consulates and embassy?)

vpb:ModernPrimitive01: I for one feel safer knowing that we have troops all over the world. It's the only way to stop the terrorists and I'm glad Romney understands this.

Really? You think Romney is in charge of Afghanistan policy?

no but when he gets into the White House he'll be able to sort all this stuff out. He understands we need a strong military presence otherwise we look weak. The last thing we want in the region is to allow all those other countries to get nuclear weapons

Aarontology:If we need 25,000 Marines to protect a consulate or embassy in a country, then we probably shouldn't be there to begin with.

This is what I was thinking. 25K is a peacekeeping force, or in other words, still committed to fighting (and dying) in the grave of empires. Not a security force, and certainly not some kind of counter-terrorism force.

That place is a shiathole and we should leave them to kill each other and their goats, and if there's a question of civilian safety, station those 25,000 marines at stateside airports and coastal regions to prevent any further attacks like the one we used as a great excuse to go empire-building.

The Onion articles about the absurd length of this war have been awesome. "Man Fulfills Childhood Dream Of Fighting War In Afghanistan", "18-Year-Old Fighting in Afghanistan Has 9/11 Explained To Him By Older Soldier", etc. It's literally gone on so long that soldiers fighting in it were in elementary school when it started.

Elandriel:This is what I was thinking. 25K is a peacekeeping force, or in other words, still committed to fighting (and dying) in the grave of empires. Not a security force, and certainly not some kind of counter-terrorism force.

Saiga410:Phoenix19851: Saiga410: Amazingly it only took Nixon 4 years to get us out of Johnson's quagmire.... whats Obama's excuse?

You do realize that We continued to be in Vietnam until 1975, well after Nixon resigned from office.

/did I feed the troll?//You Betcha!

I was meaning more combat role. US troops moved out of active combat in early 73. about 4 years 2 months. Obama is looking at 6 years with a maybe more.

No he isn't. He is talking about protection for the embassy and training support, not combat. We still have troops in Iraq if you are counting embassy security. The Iraqi embassy had a staff of over 16,000 people and only 2,000 of them are diplomats.

LouDobbsAwaaaay:The Onion articles about the absurd length of this war have been awesome. "Man Fulfills Childhood Dream Of Fighting War In Afghanistan", "18-Year-Old Fighting in Afghanistan Has 9/11 Explained To Him By Older Soldier", etc. It's literally gone on so long that soldiers fighting in it were in elementary school when it started.

Meanwhile, the Russians are laughing up their sleeves, barely able to stifle giggles. We should deploy some got-danged nuckuler misiles in Turkey, aimed right at Moscow just to show those Commie bas-tids.

LouDobbsAwaaaay:The Onion articles about the absurd length of this war have been awesome. "Man Fulfills Childhood Dream Of Fighting War In Afghanistan", "18-Year-Old Fighting in Afghanistan Has 9/11 Explained To Him By Older Soldier", etc. It's literally gone on so long that soldiers fighting in it were in elementary school when it started.

My brother, who trained soldiers for the first Gulf War now has a son who is considering joining the military and serving in Afghanistan. We've been bombing, blockading, or occupying at least one middle eastern or south asian nation for my entire adult life. The Soviet Union finally collapses in '91 and we're already balls deep in Saudi Arabia / Kuwait / Iraq.

It's almost as if there were some well funded industrial base the had massive political clout and depended on huge amounts of military spending.

TNel:Want to see American soldiers riot? Take them out of Germany. I was there for a bit and it was the best place I have ever been. God that was the best deployment.

Yeah, my brother was deployed to Wiesbaden while I was busting my ass at the university. The bastard kept sending me pictures of his cute German girlfriend and the trips they'd take to Barcelona, France or Austria. I think two weeks out of the year he had to sleep in a field but other than that had his own apartment off base when he wasn't shacked up with some Lily Von Schtupp wannabe.

They serve no real purpose anymore. The Cold War ended twenty years ago. So many of these bases provide little to nothing in regards for national security, and are always the launching points for our military misadventures around the world.

Do you think we'd be getting involved everywhere if there wasn't the support and base network set up all over the globe? Without it, we'd actually have to think about whether or not our involvement in something is worth while since it would be far more difficult to do. As it is, we can just hop skip and jump soldiers and equipment from one shiat hole to the other without much effort, relatively speaking.

Saiga410:Amazingly it only took Nixon 4 years to get us out of Johnson's quagmire.... whats Obama's excuse?

Nixon continued what was actually Kennedy's quagmire, or maybe even Eisenhower's, about 4 years longer than he actually had to. We left on terms the North Vietnamese would have given us at the outset of Nixon's administration. What Johnson did was preside over an expansion of the war that was probably inevitable, given the facts on the ground in Vietnam, and domestic politics of the mid '60s. Of course, Johnson's methods were hardly ethical, but he'd been an "ends-justify-the-means" guy for pretty much his entire career, so what the hell would you expect?